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Mamet and Disney

Variety reports that David Mamet is to write and direct a new film version of The Diary of Anne Frank. For Disney, no less. The article says: “Mamet brings his own original take on the material that could re-frame the story as a young girl’s rite of passage.”

I mean this with no disrespect to Mamet, whose work I really admire for its, well, density and brutality of language, but I have to wonder who is in for more of a surprise: Disney, for thinking that Mamet is going to “re-frame the story as a young girl’s rite of passage” in a way that will not emotionally scar your typical Disney audience; or the audience, for thinking this’ll be a happy Disneyified version of Anne’s life.

Mamet’s last film, Redbelt, is a subtle piece of work that gels more and more the longer it sits in your brain. Not a happy ending, necessarily, but one that resonates quite solidly. Very much a writer’s movie.